Richard Whittall:

The Globalist's Top Ten Books in 2016: The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer

Middle East Eye: "

The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer is one of the weightiest, most revelatory, original and important books written about sport"

“The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer has helped me immensely with great information and perspective.”

Bob Bradley, former US and Egyptian national coach: "James Dorsey’s The Turbulent World of Middle Eastern Soccer (has) become a reference point for those seeking the latest information as well as looking at the broader picture."

Alon Raab in The International Journal of the History of Sport: “Dorsey’s blog is a goldmine of information.”

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Richard Whitall of A More Splendid Life:

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Christopher Ahl, Play the Game: "An excellent Middle East Football blog"

A series of anti-corruption measures as well as statements
by Mr. Mahathir and his defense minister, Mohamad (Mat) Sabu, since this
month’s upset in elections that ousted Prime Minister Najib Razak from office,
are sparking concern in both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Mr. Mahathir, who has cautioned in recent years against
widespread anti-Shiite sectarianism in Malaysia, has questioned together with
Mr. Sabu Malaysia’s counterterrorism cooperation with Saudi Arabia.

Mr. Razak is suspected of having syphoned off billions of
dollars from state-owned strategic development fund 1Malaysia Development
Berhad (1MDB). The fund as well as Saudi and UAE entities allegedly connected
to the affair are under investigation in at least six countries, including the
United States, Switzerland and Singapore.

Apparently anticipating a possible change in relations,
political scientist Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, whose views are often seen as
reflecting UAE government thinking, disparaged
Mr. Mahathir and the Malaysian vote days after the results were
announced.

Mr Abdulla also harped on the fact that Mr. Mahathir had
been Mr. Razak’s mentor before defecting to the opposition and forging an
alliance with Anwar Ibrahim, Mr. Mahathir’s former deputy prime minister and an
Islamist believed to be close to the Muslim Brotherhood, whom he
helped put behind bars.

UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed is known for his intense
opposition to political Islam, including the Brotherhood.

“Malaysia seems to lack wise men, leaders, statesmen and
youth to elect a 92-year-old who suddenly turned against his own party and his
own allies and made a suspicious deal with his own political opponent whom he
previously imprisoned after fabricating the most heinous of charges against
him. This is politics as a curse and democracy as wrath,” Mr. Abdulla said on
Twitter, two days after the election.

Mr. Sabu, the new defense minister, noted in a commentary
late last year that Saudi (and UAE) wrath was directed “oddly, (at) Turkey,
Qatar, and Iran…three countries that have undertaken some modicum of political
and economic reforms. Instead of encouraging all sides to work together, Saudi
Arabia has gone on an offensive in Yemen, too. Therein the danger
posed to Malaysia: if Malaysia is too close to Saudi Arabia,
Putrajaya would be asked to choose a side.”

Putrajaya, a city south of Kuala Lumpur, is home to the
prime minister’s residence and a bridge with four minaret-type piers that is inspired
by Iranian architecture.

Mr. Sabu went on to say that “Malaysia should not be too
close to a country whose internal politics are getting toxic… For the lack of a
better word, Saudi Arabia is a cesspool of constant rivalry among the princes.
By this token, it is also a vortex that could suck any country into its black
hole if one is not careful. Indeed, Saudi Arabia is governed by hyper-orthodox
Salafi or Wahhabi ideology, where Islam is taken in a literal form. Yet true
Islam requires understanding Islam, not merely in its Quranic form, but Quranic
spirit.”

The opening of the centre was twice postponed because Saudi
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman cancelled his planned attendance. Malaysian
officials said the kingdom had yet to contribute promised funds for the centre.

“Whether we like it or not, whatever we think of them, Saudi
Arabia is a major player in the Muslim world and in the Middle East. Their
administration of the haj makes it crucial for Muslim-majority countries to get
along with them,” Mr. Lockman said.

The fact that Mr. Mahathir’s election has sparked hopes that
he will move Malaysia away from Mr. Razak’s embrace of Saudi-inspired
ultra-conservative Islam as a political tool, despite the prime minister’s
history of prejudice
towards Jews and past
anti-Shiite record, is likely to reinforce Saudi and UAE concern
that his moves could favour Iran.

Mr. Mahathir has vacillated in his statements between banning
Shiism to avert sectarianism and calling on Sunni Muslims in Malaysia to accept
the country’s miniscule Shiite minority as a way of avoiding domestic strife.

What is likely to concern the Saudis most is the fact that
Mr. Mahathir has said that accepting
Shiites as fellow Muslims was necessary because of the
growth of the Iranian expatriate community in Malaysia. Analysts say
the presence has sparked a greater awareness of Shiism and Sunni animosity because
of Mr. Razak’s divisive policies.

Saudi and UAE worries about the reinvigorated
anti-corruption investigation are rooted in the potential implication in the
scandal of a Saudi commercial company, members
of the Saudi ruling family, and UAE state-owned entities and
officials.

The investigation is likely to revisit 1MDB relationship’s
with Saudi
energy company PetroSaudi International Ltd, owned by Saudi
businessman Tarek Essam Ahmad Obaid as well as prominent members of the
kingdom’s ruling family who allegedly funded Mr. Razak.

A three-part BBC documentary, The House of Saud: A Family at
War, suggested that Mr. Razak had worked with Prince Turki bin
Abdullah, the son of former Saudi King Abdullah, to syphon off funds from 1MDB.

UAE-owned, Swiss-based Falcon Bank has also been linked to
the scandal while leaked
emails documented a close relationship between Yousef al-Otaiba, the
UAE’s high-profile ambassador to the United States and confidante of Prince
Mohammed bin Zayed, and controversial Malaysian financier Jho Low, a
27-year-old Wharton graduate who helped Mr. Razak run 1MDB.

The UAE embassy in Washington declined to comment at the
time but admitted that Mr. Oteiba had private business interests unrelated to
his diplomatic role. The embassy charged that the leaked emails were part of an
effort to tarnish his reputation.

Bank statements and financial documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, suggest that
Khadem Al Qubaisi, a CEO of an Abu-Dhabi owned investment comapny, who has also been implicated in the scandal, facilitated the purchase by UAE deputy prime
minister Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s brother of a $500 million yacht with
1MDB funds.

“The impact of this election will reverberate far beyond
Malaysia's borders,” said Asia director of the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue
Michael Vatikiotis.

Mr. Vatikiotis was looking primarily at the fallout
of Mr. Mahathir’s victory in Southeast Asia and China. His analysis
is however equally valid for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, where
it could also prove to be embarrassing.

Wednesday, May 30, 2018

A planned China and Russia-led show of support for Iran at
next month’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit is likely to be
primarily symbolic unless the group opts to honour the Islamic republic’s bid to
be upgraded from observer to full member.

Yet, even a symbolic SCO gesture at its June 9-10 gathering
in the Chinese city of Qingdao that would denounce the US withdrawal from the 2015
international nuclear agreement with Iran and imposition of harsh sanctions could
prove tricky.

The meeting is expected to be attended by the presidents of
China, Russia, Iran India, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and
Tajikistan. It will come a day after the leaders of G-7 that groups the United
States, the European Union, Japan, Canada, Britain, France and Germany are unlikely
to find common ground on Iran at their summit in Quebec.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates will presumably
not look kindly at solidarity at a time that the underlying motto of US and
Saudi policy towards Iran appears to be isolation and regime change.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE moreover fear that membership in the
SCO, which groups four Central Asian nations as well as Pakistan and India
alongside China and Russia, would grant Iran a veto over their potential
association with the grouping. With Israel and others interested in joining the
SCO, that may be the reason why the group has so far dragged its feet on
Iranian membership.

China and Russia, like Europe are signatories of the nuclear
agreement, but less concerned than Britain, France and Germany about the threat
of US sanctions against their own companies who do business in Iran. At least
officially, they have so far not factored in a potential Saudi and UAE response
to efforts to defeat the sanctions and salvage the agreement.

Swiss lender Banque de Commerce et de Placements (BCP) said on
Tuesday that it had suspended
new transactions with Iran and was winding down Iran-related activities.
Earlier, Germany's second biggest lender, DZ Bank, said it would halt financial
transactions with Iran in July.

Pakistan could find itself in the most difficult situation
given its close political, military and cultural ties to Saudi Arabia and the
UAE and its 700-kilometre long border with Iran.

The degree to which SCO members could find themselves
between a rock and a hard place will depend on what strategy the United States
and Saudi Arabia adopt in possible attempts to change the Iranian regime.

So far, the Trump administration appears to see economic
pressure that would fuel already widespread discontent in Iran as its best bet.
That could change however if efforts by SCO members as well as Europe succeed
in countering US sanctions and salvaging the nuclear deal.

Complicating the debate about how best to confront Iran is
the fact that senior aides to President Donald J. Trump have close ties to a
controversial Iranian exile group, the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK) or Holy
Warriors of the People, seeking the overthrow of the government in Tehran that
also enjoys Saudi support.

The group, believed to be responsible for the killing of several
American military personnel and contractors in Iran in the 1970s, was
designated by the US Treasury in 1997 and delisted in 2012, a year after a host
of former US and British officials, came out publicly in support of the
group.

Many of the officials have attended and addressed MEK
rallies, allegedly in exchange for handsome fees and all-expenses paid trip. MEK,
which first gained recognition for its opposition to the Shah of Iran, has denied
paying for speaking engagements.

Mr. Trump’s national security advisor John Bolton and
Richard Giuliani, one of his top lawyers, were among the speakers.

“The declared policy of the United States of America should
be the overthrow of the mullah’s regime in Iran. Before 2019, we here will
celebrate in Tehran,” Mr. Bolton told an MEK rally less than a year before his
appointment by Mr. Trump.

“The regime is evil, and it must go. Free Iran,” added Mr. Giuliani.

Others who have backed the group include former FBI director
Louis Freer, former British home secretary Lord Waddington, former US Homeland
Security Secretary Tom Ridge, three former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, two former directors of the CIA, former commander of NATO Wesley K.
Clark, two former U.S. ambassadors to the United Nations., former national security
advisers Fran Townsend and General James Jones, and 93 members of Congress.

US officials said at the time that the group had been
delisted after it had renounced violence and cooperated in closing a
paramilitary base in Iraq from where it was operating since declaring its
support in 1983 for Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war.

The public face of the kingdom’s backing of the MEK is former
Saudi intelligence chief and ex-ambassador to Britain and the United States,
Prince Turki al-Faisal.

"Your legitimate struggle against the (Iranian) regime
will achieve its goal, sooner or later. I,
too, want the fall of the regime,” Prince Turki, echoing the statements by
Messrs. Bolton and Giuliani, told an MEK rally in Paris in 2017.

One-time MEK National Liberation Army commander and security
chief, Massoud Khodabandeh, who turned against the group in the second half of
the 1990s, says that “I
personally have brought money and gold from Saudi Arabia to Iraq for the
Mujahedeen… It was three trucks of gold… I would say about a ton each.”

A 2012
report by the Library of Congress identified Mr. Khodabandeh and his wife
as Iranian intelligence agents. The report said the couple had agreed to
cooperate with the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security after it
threatened to kill Mr. Khodabandeh’s brother and confiscate extensive real
estate holdings in Tehran owned by his mother.

The MEK is widely believed to have been responsible for a
series of bombings in Iran in the immediate aftermath of the 1979 toppling of
the Shah. that killed scores of post-revolution leaders.

Dutch
media reports suggested last week that an Iranian exile killed in Amsterdam
in 2015 was an MEK operative who had been sentenced to death in Iran for
bombing a gathering of officials in Teheran in 1981.

Seventy-three people were killed in the attack, including
Ayatollah Mohammed Beheshti, the second most powerful cleric at the time after
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, as well as four ministers and numbers of members
of parliament.

It’s unclear what degree of support the MEK enjoys in Iran
today with many analysts convinced that the group lost sympathy when it sided
with Iraq against Iran. Groups
associated with the MEK have claimed credit for protests in recent years in
the oil-rich province of Khuzestan, that has a significant ethnic Arab
population. Iranian Arab activists deny the groups’ assertions.

Saudi backing of groups like the MEK and PYD as well as
ultra-conservative, anti-Shiite, anti-Iranian forces in the troubled Pakistani
province of Balochistan that borders on Iran could potentially pose a serious
problem for the leaders of the SCO.

So far, China is in good company with much of the
international community opposed to abrogation of the Iranian nuclear agreement
and, at least in word, determined to defeat US efforts to bring Iran to its
knees with sanctions.

Yet, like many in the international community with Europe in
the lead, China may find that putting its money where its mouth is could prove
in the final analysis problematic.

If Europe’s Achilles Heel is obstacles to putting credible
mechanisms in place to protect its companies against US sanctions, China’s weak
spot is its ruthless
campaign to tame Islam in China, particularly among Uighurs in the
strategic northwest province of Xinjiang.

So far, it has been able to do so with little international response
because Saudi Arabia and other Islamic states have looked the other way. The
question is whether an effective Chinese countering of US sanctions that would
significantly weaken the impact on Iran may prompt Saudi Arabia and others to
revisit the issue.

Eager to forge close ties to Middle Eastern nations, Mr.
Kadyrov, who tightly controls Chechen sports, was cashing in on the fact that
he has aligned himself with like-minded governments that not only stand out in
their repression of dissent, but also their efforts to oppose
Saudi-inspired ultra-conservative Sunni Muslim Islam.

Mr. Kadyrov, a barrel-chested man who recognizes the
political utility of sports and is widely seen as a henchman of Russian
President Vladimir Putin, earned his credentials by brutally suppressing
an Islamist insurgency in Chechnya during his decade-long tenure.

Speaking to The
Washington Post, Beslan Visambiev, a manager of a Grozny-based UAE
investment fund, suggested that Mr. Putin was using Mr. Kadyrov as his point
man in the Muslim world. “It seems like Putin delegated those powers to
Kadyrov,” Mr. Visambiev said.

Mr. Visambiev echoed Mr. Kadyrov’s own words four years
earlier when he addressed 20,000 members of his militia in a Grozny stadium.

“The time has come for us to make our conscious choice, and
we say this to the whole world that we are the combat infantry of Vladimir
Putin,” Mr.
Kadyrov said quoting a speech given by his father shortly before he was assassinated
in 2004.

Criticism
by human rights groups of the UAE’s investment and Egypt’s choice of Grozny
has focussed on Chechnya rather than the Emirates and Egypt, even if both
countries have recently been in the news for their own alleged violations of basic
rights.

Yet, Mr. Kadyrov’s notion of a more liberal interpretation
of Islam is not dissimilar to that of Mr. Al-Sisi or Prince Mohammed, even if
the effective UAE ruler has been not
quite as harsh in measures against transgender, gay, and gender non-conforming
people.

The bullet-riddled body of Mr. Titev’s predecessor, Natalia
Estemirova, was dumped by the road shortly after she was kidnapped in 2009.

The fact that Egypt and the UAE are the vehicles Mr. Kadyrov
is using to exploit this month’s World Cup in Russia in a bid to project
Chechnya on the world stage in a more positive light and polish his tarnished
image is no coincidence.

Both the UAE and Egypt have been in the forefront of efforts
to counter political Islam and promote more quietist, apolitical
interpretations of the faith that counter Saudi-style ultra-conservatism and
are more in line with their vision of autocratic rule even if both countries
are closely aligned with the kingdom.

The UAE has quietly nurtured
the creation of moderate Islamic institutions such as the Muslim
Council of Elders, the Global Forum for Prompting Peace in Muslim Societies and
the Sawab and Hedayah Centres in a bid to counter the influence of
controversial, Qatar-based Islamic scholar, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the
Muslim Brotherhood, and more militant Islamist forces.

Mr. Al-Sisi, an observant Muslim who in a 2006 paper
argued that democracy cannot be understood without a grasp of the concept of
the caliphate, has been advocating with limited success that Al Azhar, one of
the Muslim world’s foremost institutions and the world’s oldest seat of Islamic learning, spearhead “a
religious revolution” to counter militancy.

Mr. Kadyrov, who professes to be a Sufi, a more mystical
interpretation of Islam, facilitated in 2016 a high point of the Emirati and
Egyptian efforts when he hosted in Grozny a gathering
of prominent Sunni Muslim leaders that effectively excommunicated
Saudi-backed ultra-conservatism.

In a frontal assault on Saudi-backed religious movements such as Wahhabism,
Salafism and Deobandism, the conference charged that the label Sunni had been
hijacked by heretics whose deviant practices distorted Islam.

Mr. Kadyrov’s alliance with the UAE and Egypt has allowed
him to exploit Russia’s hosting of the World Cup even if Chechnya will not be a
venue for any of the competition’s matches.

The alliance has also paid off in other ways. The UAE last
year created the Zayed Fund that aims to support Chechen businesses and is funding
construction of a gleaming skyscraper in the Chechen capital. UAE-based carrier
Air Arabia launched in April direct flights from Sharjah to Grozny

The UAE-Egypt-Chechnya alliance may have produced economic
benefits but appears to have done little to improve the tarnished image of the
Russian republic or Mr. Kadyrov himself.

"FIFA's decision to use Grozny for a World Cup team
camp is absolutely shocking and outrageous. FIFA
should reverse their decision and move the training camp to another city, "
said Human Rights Watch associate director Jane Buchanan.

FIFA last year conceded that anti-LGBT attacks in Chechnya
were in "sharp
contradiction to the values of FIFA as an organization and we firmly
condemn them” but more recently insisted that it had “no grounds to believe
that the choice of the Egyptian FA to locate its base camp in Grozny will cause
particular adverse human rights impacts.”

Countered Ms. Buchanan, the author of a report on World Cup
worker abuses in Russia: Mr. Kadyrov runs Chechnya “like his own fiefdom and
commits human rights abuses with impunity. FIFA’s decision will only legitimize
the utterly abusive Kadyrov regime.”

Sunday, May 27, 2018

Nothing in a swath of land stretching from the Atlantic coast of
Africa to China is undisputed.

Food is often emblematic of disputes over identity, history and
political claims that underlie an arc of crisis wracked by ethnic and religious
conflict; clamour for political, economic, social, national and minority
rights; efforts by states and ethnic groups to garner soft power or assert
hegemony, international branding; diplomatic leverage; and great power rivalry.

Israel and Lebanon fight humus wars and join Palestine in battles
over the origins of multiple dishes.

Turks, Arabs, Jews, Greeks, Armenians, and Iranians claim as their
national dish baklava,
a sweet whose variations over time reflect the region’s history. They fight
over the sweet’s origins and even that of the word baklava.

The battles over the origin of foods have forced countries to
rewrite aspects of their histories and major companies to review the way they
market products. Food also serves as a barometer of the influence of regional
powers.

Iranian dates flooding Iraqi markets suggest that Iran is winning its proxy war with
Saudi Arabia, another major grower, in Iraq, the world’s biggest producer of
the fruit prior to the country’s multiple wars dating back to the Iran-Iraq war
in the 1980s.

Iranian domination of the market symbolizes the Islamic republic’s
massive inroads into Iraq ranging from the fact that it is the country’s
foremost trading partner to its political influence in Baghdad and military
sway exemplified by Iraq’s powerful Shiite militias.

Saudi Arabia, which only recently switched from effectively
boycotting Iraq to forging political, economic, and cultural links is playing catch-up. The kingdom garnered a
degree of soft power on the soccer pitch and has plans to invest in Iraqi sectors
like petrochemicals, energy and agriculture.

The more than a decade-long Israel-Lebanon hummus wars are both a struggle to claim whose food it is, counter perceived
Israeli attempts to colonize Palestinian and Levantine culture, and an effort
to make an international mark though securing a place in the Guinness Book of
Records by competing for the title of having made the largest pile of the
chickpea dip. Hummus symbolizes “all the tension in the Middle East," says Israeli food journalist Ronit Vered.

The war kicked into high gear with Lebanon, home to Middle Eastern
haute cuisine, producing a 4,532-pound plate in 2009 prepared by 250 Lebanese sous-chefs and their 50 instructors
that was intended to deprive Israel of its earlier record engineered by Sabra,
an Israeli hummus producer.

That same year, Lebanon also made its mark with a 223-kilogram kibbeh, a cylindrical cone-shaped dish made of cracked wheat, minced
onions, finely ground lean beef, lamb, goat, or camel and spiced with cinnamon,
nutmeg, clove, and allspice.

"We were not trying to prove something, but to remind people
that we should take the international market more seriously. (In the U.S.), if
you question that hummus is Israeli, you're an outcast, but hummus existed long before Israel," said then Lebanese tourism minister Fadi
Aboud.

In a reflection of the complexity of Middle Eastern disputes and a
hint towards hummus’ Arab origins, it was an Israeli Palestinian, Jawdat
Ibrahim, rather than an Israeli Jew who took up the Lebanese challenge.

The owner of a popular restaurant in Abu Ghosh, Mr. Ibrahim months
later cooked up a 4,090- kilogram hummus that was served in a satellite dish. "It
was (a) big issue ­­that hummus was Lebanese. I said, 'No, hummus is for
everybody.' I hold a meeting in the village and I say, 'We are going to break
Guinness Book of World Record.' Not the Israeli government, the people of Abu
Gosh,” Mr. Ibrahim said.

Food battles do not stop at the borders of Africa and Asia. They
extend into Europe and impact projections of national heritage and commerce.

In March, Virgin Atlantic felt obliged to drop classification of a salad on its in-flight menu as Palestinian even though
it was based on a Palestinian recipe after pro-Israel passengers protested and
threatened to boycott the airline. The airline opted for the more generic name,
Couscous Salad.

“Our salad is made using a mix of maftoul (traditional Palestinian
couscous) and couscous, which is complemented by tomatoes and cucumber which really
helps lift the salad from a visual perspective and is seasoned with a parsley,
mint and lemon vinaigrette. However, we always want to do the right thing for
our customers and as a result of feedback, we have renamed this menu item from
our food offering at the end of last year and we’re extremely sorry for any
offense caused,” said a spokesperson for Virgin Atlantic.

Quipped Palestinian cookbook writer Christiane Dabdoub Nasser: “Maftoul is Palestinian, just like pasties are
Cornish and pâté de foie gras is French. No one can deny that and yet the
airline, to add insult to injury, apologizes for the offense that the mention
of Palestinian maftoul might have caused.”

American cookbook writer and television personality Rachel Ray two
months earlier sparked an uproar on social media when she showcased hummus alongside stuffed grape leaves,
andvarious dips made from beet, eggplant,
sun dried tomatoes, walnut and red pepper as well as tabbouleh, a salad, as Israeli dishes, disregarding their Levantine origins.

“This is cultural genocide. It’s not Israeli food. It’s Arab
(Lebanese, Palestinian, Syrian, Jordanian). First the Israelis take the land
and ethnically cleanse it of Arabs. Now they take their food and culture and
claim it’s theirs too! Shame,” tweeted prominent Arab American James Zogby.

British supermarket chain Waitrose took a hit in 2015 when it distributed a
magazine entitled Taste of Israel that featured tahini, zaatar and other dishes
that like Ms. Ray’s foods originate in pre-Israel Arab lands across the Levant.

Similarly, Sweden recently conceded that meatballs, long
celebrated as one the internationally best known icons of traditional Swedish
cuisine, were in fact an Ottoman import.

Sweden’s official Twitter account, featuring Swedish multi-national Ikea’s rendering of the dish, admitted
that Swedish King Charles XII had brought the recipe from Turkey in the early
18th century when returned from five years in exile. “Let's stick to the facts!”
Sweden said.

Swedish food historians and gourmets had already accepted that Kaldolmens Day or Cabbage Roll Day that commemorates the death of King Charles
celebrates another dish that he discovered while dwelling among the Ottomans.

Refuting Sweden’s claim was easy compared to battles over baklava
whose history dating to the 8th century BC Assyria tells the story
of shifting regional power, changing tastes and the communality of food that
can prove to be equally divisive.

Turks, Arabs, Jews, Greeks, Armenians, and Iranians all
contributed to baklava as we know it, yet they are reticent to acknowledge the
sweet as a regional rather than a national dish.

Greek seamen and merchants brought it to Athens where cooks
introduced a malleable, thin leaf dough to replace the Assyrian rough,
bread-like mixture of mixture of flour and liquid. Armenians added cinnamon and
cloves while Arabs introduced rose and orange blossom water. Iranians invented baklava’s
diamond-shape and perfected it with a nut stuffing perfumed with jasmine.

Ebtisam Masto is a refugee who fled war-torn Syria with her six
children to Beirut where she joined a cooking programme in an effort to rebuild
her life. Summing up the region’s battle of the palates, she says”

Friday, May 25, 2018

A recent upsurge in insurgent activity in
Kashmir likely explains Pakistani and Chinese reluctance to crackdown on
internationally designated militant Hafez Saeed and the network of groups that
he heads.

So does the fact that Mr. Saeed and Lashkar-e-Taiba,
an outlawed, India-focused ultra-conservative Sunni Muslim group widely seen as
one of South Asia’s deadliest, have assisted Pakistani intelligence and the
military in countering militants like Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, the Pakistani
Taliban, that have turned against Pakistan itself.

Lashkar-e-Taiba has also been useful in opposing
nationalist
insurgents in Balochistan, a key node in China's Belt and Road initiative.
The China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a $50 billion plus China
investment in Pakistani infrastructure and energy, is the initiative’s single
largest cost post with the Baloch port of Gwadar as its crown jewel.

The United States has put a $10 million bounty on
the head of Mr. Saeed, who is believed to lead Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) as well as
Jamaat-ud-Dawa, an alleged LeT front, and is suspected of being the mastermind
of the 2008 Mumbai attacks in which 166 people were killed.

Lashkar-e-Taiba is "not only useful,
but also reliable. (Its)...objectives may not perfectly align with the security
establishment’s objectives, but they certainly overlap," says international
security scholar Stephen Tankel.

The relationship is reinforced by a fear
in parts of Pakistan's security establishment that the group’s popularity,
rooted partly in social services provided by its charity arm, would enable it
to wage a violent campaign against the state if the military and intelligence
were to cut it loose.

So far, Pakistan with tacit Chinese
backing appear to see mileage in the group’s existence as a pinprick in India’s
side even if creating the perception of greater distance to the security establishment
has become a more urgent necessity because of international pressure.

Speaking to the Indian Express, Major
General Asif Ghafoor, a spokesman for Pakistan’s intelligence service, Inter-Services
Intelligence, said that “anything
(Mr. Saeed) does, other than violence, is good. There is a process in
Pakistan for anyone to participate in politics. The Election Commission of
Pakistan (ECP) has its rules and laws. If he (Mr. Saeed) fulfils all those
requirements that is for the ECP to decide.”

Indian
officials are not so sure. In a world in which demarcations between various
militant groups are blurred, Indian intelligence expects a spike in attack in
Kashmir this summer as a result of Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives joining groups like
Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and the Hizbul Mujahideen (HM).

Lashkar-e-Taiba’s utility notwithstanding,
Pakistan and China are discovering that engagement with militants is never
clean cut. Decades of Pakistani support of often Saudi-backed
ultra-conservative Sunni Muslim militants has woven militancy into the fabric
of militancy into segments of the military, intelligence, bureaucracy and the
public.

“A military–mullah–militant nexus has
existed for several decades in Pakistan. During this time, the Pakistani
military has used religious and political parties connected, directly or
indirectly, to various militant outfits as political proxies,” Mr. Tankel said.

National security expert S. Paul Kapur
and political scientist Sumit Ganguly noted that “the Pakistan-militant
nexus is as old as the Pakistani state. From its founding in 1947 to the
present day, Pakistan has used religiously motivated militant forces as
strategic tools… Supporting jihad has
been one of the principal means by which the Pakistani state has sought to
produce security for itself.”

Decades later, the strategy is backfiring.
Concern of increased domestic violence if Pakistan were to cut its links to
militants and crackdown on them irrespective of their utility is heightened by
the fact many of the groups operate either with no regard for the concerns of
the security establishment or with the unsanctioned support of individual
military and intelligence officials.

That is believed to have been the case in
a string of sectarian attacks in Balochistan by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ),
ultra-conservative, anti-Shiite Sunni Muslim militants, in which hundreds of
Shiites have been killed. China has also been a target of militants in
Balochistan.

The spike in sectarian attacks prompted a
military crackdown earlier this month. “While such intelligence-based
operations are vital, they deal with the symptoms rather than the disease,”
cautioned Dawn newspaper.

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About Me

James M DorseyWelcome to The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer by James M. Dorsey, a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Soccer in the Middle East and North Africa is played as much on as off the pitch. Stadiums are a symbol of the battle for political freedom; economic opportunity; ethnic, religious and national identity; and gender rights. Alongside the mosque, the stadium was until the Arab revolt erupted in late 2010 the only alternative public space for venting pent-up anger and frustration. It was the training ground in countries like Egypt and Tunisia where militant fans prepared for a day in which their organization and street battle experience would serve them in the showdown with autocratic rulers. Soccer has its own unique thrill – a high-stakes game of cat and mouse between militants and security forces and a struggle for a trophy grander than the FIFA World Cup: the future of a region. This blog explores the role of soccer at a time of transition from autocratic rule to a more open society. It also features James’s daily political comment on the region’s developments. Contact: incoherentblog@gmail.comView my complete profile